Having established the true dimensions and characteristics of the “Jewish evil,” we are naturally expected to answer a question of an opposite nature:  are the Jews to any extent useful to State and society?  This question, though very frequently heard, is not quite intelligible, for every subject, who fulfils his obligations, is useful to State and society.  It would be strange to put a similar question concerning other nationalities of Eastern origin in Russia, such as the Greeks, Armenians, and Tartars.  And yet this question is raised with great frequency in the case of the Jews, for the purpose of proving the need of repressive measures and framing a stronger indictment against the Jewish population.  There is no doubt that in certain lines of endeavor the Jews are extremely useful.  This was already realized by Catherine, who admitted them to the South-Russian coast in order to introduce commercial activities and bring life into the country,....  The peculiar nature of their commerce and credit is useful to the State, because they connect the remotest regions by commercial ties and are satisfied with considerably smaller profits than are the Christian merchants....

We must not, first of all, engage in too comprehensive plans of reform and imagine that the Jewish question can be considered in all its aspects and solved at one stroke....  Gradation and cautiousness must above all become the guiding principles of the future activity of the legislator.

The repressive policy, taken by itself, has been and will always be the first and main source of the clannishness of the Jews and their aloofness from Russian life....  The prohibitive laws have not improved the Jews.  On the contrary, they have developed in them the spirit of opposition, and have prompted them to devise all the time most dexterous means of evading the law, thereby corrupting the lower executives of the State power.  These laws affect the daily doings of every member of the Jewish population, and they extend to such spheres of life and activity in which State control is almost impossible.  They touch the domain of private contract law (the prohibition of land leases), the domain of physical liberty and the need of human locomotion (the prohibition to transgress the Pale of Settlement, or to live in villages within fifty versts of the border), the domain of daily pursuits and earnings (the prohibition of several professions), and many others.

No law will ever be able to check effectively the legal violations in these hourly acts and common relations of life.  It is impossible to attach a policeman or a public prosecutor or a justice of the peace to every Jew.  And yet it is perfectly natural that, being restricted in the most elementary rights of a subject—­to take as one instance only the right of free movement—­every Jew should daily attempt to violate and evade such burdensome